Abhishek Baxi and Manan, with Jaspreet Bindra.
Jaspreet Bindra, the Regional Director – Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft India joins us for a peek into the future of console gaming, worldwide and in India, with Natal ‘coming soon’ and the industry going forward. We try to put forward some questions asked by the community, and JB answers most of them candidly.
Share your thoughts about the podcast as comments to this post. We always appreciate feedback and in all enthusiasm, would send out a few commentators a smart Xbox-branded Adidas cap.
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Comments (8)
Based on my experience with XBOX, suggestions and feedback as below
Availability:
It takes lot of time for the console & the games to reach India, for example XBOX 360 elite is still not launched in India.
Pricing:
The games are priced too high, infact it is direct conversion of US$ cost to Indian currency. Now considering the fact that India is a poor country compared to US or any other developed countries, I think there should some relaxation in the game DVD’s price. For the piracy part since the games are already region specific it should not be an issue.
To start with I am happy to see Xbox India active on all such forums. Regular updates on facebook are great. The leadership taking care of India operations is strong and seems that they have a vision to ensure that Gaming goes a long way.
Feedback is they could do better as far as their contact center services are concerned and though the hardware prices are not in direct control due to customs/duties, I think they have done a great job as far as software prices are concerned. In US any new game is around $59 whereas here most of the games are in the range of Rs.1800 to 2500. (excepting few like Tekken/SF4/RE5). While software pricing is a plus, availability and reach is a definite issue.
Brand awareness, marketing could be so much better. Practically no launch parties I hear about whenever there is a new game coming up.
Gaming is an industry which has been recession proof to a large extent. Different schemes, promotions, product launches in big way will expedite MS sales as Indian Gamers have a lot of appetite for all such activities. Lets hope Jaspreet and his team can come up with solid plans for the year as trust me most of us here are willing to spend the money as soon as a game is launched. Issues like availability, delayed release etc. prevent us from doing so.
Xbox 360 does have a winner on hands in form of Natal however there is a lack of after sales support in the organised retail channel in terms of availability of games, knowledge of sales staff on console gaming. This years budget has made provision for reduction in imported game prices, however i have still not seen any visible impact on reduction in game prices.
also there are very less promotional activities being carried out to increase the visibility of Xbox 360 brand.
There is one issue which has not been fixed for the past 7 months and that is the Xbox live payment gateway. Credit cards are not working on the live gateway. There has been no response from the Facebook page for any queries on the matter. I hope that MS is aware of this problem and fix it soon. There is a good reason why i am asking for the problem to be fixed. The 12 month live card costs 2240 online and around 3000 when we buy it as a card at retailers ( why is there a price difference in the first place). The same goes with the MS points too. They are cheaper online than at retailers. If MS wants to boost retail sales by not fixing this problem, i would say that its really lame to do so. Am sorry if i am overreacting but it has been 7 MONTHS since this problem started !!
The NATAL beats Wii and PS3 move hands down.
Please post release dates. Rumored or Factual.
XBOX is expensive so are its games.I am with sashi on this.A game which costs you 15$ in the US costs 2500RS in India i.e 25$ approx.Its definitely cheap for them but when they fly down to India,they get ultra expensive.Project Natal is definitely a good go but i really wonder how well Indians welcome it.It take time for any XBOX product to reach India and its the kids who prefer to buy them.It'll take time for em to pile up money.by the time they do that.a new product gets launched in the US.and yes,community tech days and virtual tech days should also speak abt the XNA framework and the gaming industry
Cheers!!
Xbox360 is certainly one of the best products microsoft ever made, and its even more promising with Natal. Looking forward to getting my hands on natal.
Here are some of my points, queries-
I wanted to ask this question, Why the name 'Natal' ? How the name 'Natal' came into existence?
I dont agree that no need for XBox ads. I think at least new game titles should be advertised if not for console.One may be knowing that some title was launched in US but he's not sure if its available in India or not. In this case ads may be more effective than going online or going to retail stores to check. I think many even do not know that a Microsoft India Online Store exists.
Also I think in India 'Natal' needs more promotion.
At least what all can be done with XBox should be advertised, many people just think of it as just a gaming device.
Is there any chance that Natal gets launched much earlier than year end holidays?